I've written about Brazil pre-Lula and post-Lula and spent the last five years covering all aspects of the country for Dow Jones, Wall Street Journal and Barron's. Meanwhile, for an undetermined amount of time, and with a little help from my friends, I will be parachuting primarily into Brazil, Russia, India and China. But will also be on the look out for interesting business stories and investing ideas throughout the emerging markets.

Cold War Reset? Russia Getting Irked With U.S.

A private U.S. non-governmental organization has spent over $4 million aiding groups unfriendly to Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin has had enough.

In Russia, it is starting to look more like a Cold War reset than the modern political and economic reset Russia and the United States have been trying for over the last several years.

This weekend, newswires from the Associated Press to the AFP reported that the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, led by Sergei Lavrov, said Washington was “interfering” in local politics. The report was based on a statement published on Saturday by a Ministry spokesman named Alexander Lukashevicha about his counterpart in the U.S. State Department, Victoria Nuland.

The beleaguered U.S.-Russia reset went into high gear in the fall of 2011. Then, during Parliamentary elections that saw Putin’s United Russia party lose seats, but still dominate the decision making power, a U.S. funded electoral rights foundation called GOLOS Association charged that the elections were rigged; some small opposition parties could not get on the ballot.

According to NED’s 2011 Annual Report, GOLOS received two grants totaling $101,422 or around 3.1 million rubles that year.

GOLOS is far from the only Russian NGO receiving grant money from the NED. In 2011, a total of $4.15 million (over 129 million rubles) was granted to a total of 73 organizations, including political touchy ones like the $70,000 grant to the Chechen Committee for National Salvation. Russia has been at odds with Chechnya, a breakaway republic in the Kremlin’s point of view, since 1996.

Although NED is not affiliated with the U.S. government, that did not stop Russia from blaming Washington for meddling in its internal affairs. After the GOLOS report on the 2011-12 elections and Hillary Clinton’s subsequent remarks, Russia turned aggressive and said it would begin investigating NGOs funded by foreign sources.

Ria Novosti newswire reported Friday that around 2,000 groups have been raided by Russian law enforcement in the past month. Some activists described it as a campaign of systematic intimidation.

And then on Thursday, Nuland at the State Department’s press briefing said Russia was conducting a “witch hunt” against these foreign, mostly U.S. funded NGOs.

“The sheer scope of these inspections now, which are now…targeting not just NGOs who are subject to the changes under Russian law but also targeting civil organizations that are not subject to those laws like religious organizations, educational organizations, really gives us concern that this is some kind of a witch hunt,” Nuland said.

The Russian Foreign Ministry statement from today focuses on those two words alone, calling them “nothing other than cynical and provocative.”

Translated from the Russian, Lukashevicha said:

“Evaluating the statement of State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland that the United States intends to continue financing in Russia some NGOs through intermediaries in third countries, bypassing Russian law as a blatant interference in our internal affairs. Actually it is the direct instigation of known non-governmental and voluntary organizations…breach of legislation relating to non-profit organizations in the Russian Federation,” the spokesman said.

Nuland was not releasing an official State Department statement on the matter. The comments made were from a transcript from the press briefing.

Nevertheless, Lukashevicha argued that despite the fact that U.S. AID is closed, U.S. interests are still being promoted in Russia through groups like NED in what he called “overlapping channels of financial support friendly to Washington”. He did not mention NED directly.

The statement concluded like a fist slammed on a table top: “There should be no doubt that attempts to influence from the outside the internal processes in Russia and the development of civil society are doomed to failure.”

For all the 80s kids in the house. A blast from the past, when there really was a Cold War.

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.

Can’t see how “the Russian Foreign Ministry statement from today focuses on those two words alone” (witch hunt) is squared with the provided quote from R F M spokesman. It seems that their primary concern there is “blatant interference in .. internal affairs” by “financing in Russia some NGOs through intermediaries in third countries, bypassing Russian law.”

They are not even against political NGOs getting money from foreign gov sources, though they are obviously not too happy about it. What they want is that these contributions are properly reported, isn’t it?

I don’t blame the Russians one bit. If Putin put $5M into some RussianNGO trying to discredit Obama I am sure the USA might do some criticizing of it’s own. The Cold War was mostly the making of the US – Russia has always been a little paranoic and defensive, the USA aggressive and intrusive and self important. Radio Free Europe etc. is as all out Cold War as ever – it’s only the Russians have caved into a semi – capitalism.

Compared to all the anti-Putin media and NGOs that the US sponsors, RT is like a needle in haystack.

I agree that Russia is playing defense and the US and UK are super-super aggressive playing like the Cold War never ended (think how many countries have they invaded or destabilized in the past 10 years alone).

Kenneth. Chechnya is not at odds with the Russian Federal government. It gets more Federal aid than any other region of Russia. President of Chechnya is very loyal to the government and even gave Gerarad Deapardieu a free apartment, after the latter received Russian citizenship.

Its about time this happened. Kick them all out, smoke them out like rats out of Russia. In times when the Attorney General in the States admits that he cannot prosecute banksters; not exactly a good time to be “spreading democracy” in Russia. Wait a bit until you get your house in order.

I think the real question here is where is US getting the money to fund these NGOs in Russia? Does Obama bring Bernanke a piece of paper that says, “Promoting Democrasy in Russia” and in return Mr. Bernanke prints a pile of cash??

I think the time is right for Russian economists to visit Washington and do a bit of teaching on economics. Oh how the world has changed LOL.